Admission requirements
To take part in Sustainability in Practice; students should be registered in the minor Sustainable Development and must have followed the previous course Global Environmental Change and Sustainability.
Description
In this course, which is part of the Minor Sustainable Development, you will experience how research into sustainability problems can be developed and how sustainability ideas and theories can be put into practice. Through guest lectures and workshops by experts from government, business, and research you will learn about experiences with sustainability in practice from diverse perspectives. Moreover, with an interdisciplinary team you will develop a research proposal for a real-world client, to help tackle a sustainability challenge. The course provides you with skills and knowledge needed to develop a strong proposal that you will execute in the consecutive Area Study course. The course will provide you with knowledge of tools and techniques that will help with researching and developing solutions to sustainability problems and is mainly grounded in the concept of systems thinking. The course will illustrate that there is no right or wrong methodological approach to investigating a problem, but that the method should be chosen based on its appropriateness to the problem at hand, the research question, the details required, the knowledge base, the available resources, and the socio-cultural context.
A strong emphasis will be placed on acquiring and/or improving practical skills, relating to developing, planning, and communicating research.
Course objectives
The course is intended to provide you with necessary knowledge and insights for the Area Study in January 2026 and provide you with knowledge and practical skills for doing research in the field of sustainability.
After completing the course; students will be able to:
Use sustainability theory in applied sustainability research;
Apply a systems approach/perspective in addressing sustainability problems;
Obtain relevant information to assess sustainability problems and their potential solutions;
Present information in the most useful manner to the target audience;
Propose a valid and feasible research approach to use in finding sustainable solutions;
Obtain topical additional knowledge for the area study;
Work in an interdisciplinary team to address a complex sustainability problem;
Schedule
The course is from 9 November – 18 December 2026. It is a full-time course with compulsory classes mostly scheduled on Monday; Wednesday; and Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday self-study; group work; and an occasional compulsory class or excursion is scheduled (so always check the schedule). The exact timing of the course; and programme details will be announced via Brightspace. Dates might change.
In MyTimetable; you can find all course and programme schedules; allowing you to create your personal timetable. Activities for which you have enrolled via MyStudyMap will automatically appear in your timetable.
Additionally; you can easily link MyTimetable to a calendar app on your phone; and schedule changes will be automatically updated in your calendar. You can also choose to receive email notifications about schedule changes. You can enable notifications in Settings after logging in.
Questions? Watch the video; read the instructions; or contact the ISSC helpdesk.
Note: Joint Degree students from Leiden/Delft need to combine information from both the Leiden and Delft MyTimetables to see a complete schedule. This video explains how to do it.
Teaching method
This course runs over a period of six weeks, during which there will be lectures and interactive workshops on various topics related to the complexity of sustainability issues, proposal writing, and communicating research.
In addition to the scheduled lectures and workshops, every group is expected to have weekly meetings with their assigned group supervisor and to contribute to scheduled plenary presentations.
Assesment method
The course assessment consists of four parts:
Quantitative assignment (10%)
GIS assignment (20%)
Individual reflection assignment (including course participation grade) (20%)
Research proposal and presentation (50%)
Resit, review & feedback
Reading list
Not applicable.
Registration
Registration opens via EduXchange on May 19 (at 13:00) and is open until June 30.
Contact
Should you have any questions regarding the registration or the minor in general; please reach out to minor@cml.leidenuniv.nl.
Remarks
Students will be enrolled in Brightspace. All the lecture notes; announcements; the schedule; assignments; etc. can be found there.
Software
The Faculty of Science uses the software distribution platform Academic Software. Through this platform; you can access the software needed for specific courses in your studies. For some software; your laptop must meet certain system requirements; which will be specified with the software. It is important to install the software before the start of the course. More information about the laptop requirements can be found on the student website.